


The Midgar Ranger

by Isaac_A_Drake



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake - Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Eco-Terrorism, F/M, M/M, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23738806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isaac_A_Drake/pseuds/Isaac_A_Drake
Summary: When I woke up I knew I wasn’t Isaac Arthur Drake any longer. Just like I knew that this body wasn’t in control of Biggs Emory any longer. I was in control. And I was both of those men, and neither. And I had three months or so before I become an eco-terrorist, oh yes I still very much planned to do that. FF7R S/I as Biggs
Relationships: Biggs/Jessie (Compilation of FFVII)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	1. Meld

**Author's Note:**

> The works of Twubs and Umodin inspired me, along with currently playing FF7R, to try and see if I could use this as my alternating update fic with Mirai Marvel to keep the creative juices flowing while not burning out on one project as I have in the past. I’ve been trying really hard to find the project to be that for me and I hope this is it, especially since I’d been wanting to give first-person a shot for a while now. Haven’t written in it since high school.   
> Low-grade spoilers for FF7R that will progressively become greater as we continue in chapters.   
> Also yes I am in fact an archaeologist that has gone on excavations and yes in fact this pandemic is both terrifying and boring for someone that has excavated areas and discovered smallpox mass graves before and can’t go back into the field until it’s all over.   
> Gave Biggs a last name vaguely related to one of the voice actors because it was similar to my great-grandfather’s name.

I, no Biggs, no I, held my head screaming in between vomiting into the toilet in front of me. 

About two hours ago Biggs had woken up with a splitting headache and memories that were not his.

Coincidentally that’s when I found myself in a body that was not mine and warring with a mind that wasn’t mine either.

The last thing I remembered before waking up in his body was the eighth day of my most recent excavation and digging up a strange glass orb completely anomalous for the American Southwest. 

Almost immediately after bitching to my dig supervisor that the sight must have been contaminated by grave-robbers in the past I had reached out to touch the sphere...and woke up in this body and screaming bloody murder. 

My train of thought attempting to analyze my situation was interrupted once more as I leaned back over the toilet to vomit.

My last thought as this shared body passed out was of my wife who thought I’d be home from the dig in a few weeks.

When I woke up I knew I wasn’t Isaac Arthur Drake any longer. Just like I knew that this body wasn’t in control of Biggs Emory any longer.

I was in control. And I was both of those men, and neither. Sometime in my sleep the two beings had merged, and I was what was left. 

As I grasped for skills and knowledge from both men I decided I was a whole greater than the parts, and that was a very good thing.

Also being a new hybrid being I was not panicking in the way I would be if I was either of my base parts left in control after gaining knowledge from the other.

Because I didn’t plan on dying or even being crippled when the Plate fell in...hmm 0006 September 29th? Isaac’s birthday even, that’s odd. But also gives me one year and two-ish months until the events of either canon game. Barret should be returning to start Avalance at the start of the new year. 

Three months or so before I become an eco-terrorist, oh yes I still very much planned to do that. 

I had three months to get used to this new me. And after that about a year to get strong enough to not die or get completely sidelined. 

And there were a lot fewer methods on how to get strong in Gaia than in some other realms I could have ended up.

There were Jenova-cells which was insane. Sure I could try and become a SOLDIER but not only was the cost high but I could go insane or be taken over by Sephiroth or something wild like that. 

Not happening.

That left me with one option. Materia.

In fact, a memory of Biggs came rushing back and I rifled around my bedding, yep there it was.

“It’s the same as Isaac’s discovery...” What Isaac had thought was a glass sphere contaminating his twelfth century Ancestral Pueblo site was actually a unique piece of Materia, one that was identical to this one Biggs had found the previous day and brought home trying to figure out what it did to no avail.

I suppose I now knew quite intimately what it did. It apparently did some kind of multiversal quantum entanglement. 

“Well...I kind of bullshitting I really have no idea,” I mused out loud to myself. 

So time to take stock of my resources.

Biggs was a crackshot with a pistol, a major techie who could get into advanced Shinra systems, weapon modification, and had the knowledge of the world I would need. 

Isaac on the other hand was an archaeologist with advanced knowledge of a world that was completely useless here, but on the other hand he was a low-key survivalist and gamer with knowledge of not just the future of this world but could make his own Neolithic tools and weapons and could use them. His grandfather had also been a sharpshooter with the Coast Guard and had taught him those skills.

So I, the new hybrid, had: future knowledge, firearm and bowman skills, survival skills, technical skills, and the motivation to not die.

Which was good, because if I didn’t die I would have to join Cloud’s party which means things would get even more dangerous than they would be in the first chapters of the story.

So if I wanted them to think this new Biggs was useful...they didn’t have a Ranger on their team, sure Yuffie was a ninja and should have survival skills but she was a kid. And they desperately needed ranged fighters, too. Barret and Yuffie were their only ranged non-magic fighters. 

Yes I could be like Hawkeye from Avengers. Bow, maybe some Legolas daggers for melee, and I went over and picked up Biggs’s pistol. It was a pretty good quality, definitely keep it as a side arm in case I needed to do mixed combat with the daggers and pistol. 

Well that settled it, I needed a bow and Biggs knew exactly where to get one. The Sector Seven Slum Weapon Shop. I could buy a collapsible compound bow and modify the Hell out of it. 

The next order of business would be to get enough Materia to empower myself.

With my decided upon Ranger build I’d definitely want Assess, HP Up, Elemental tied in with the different elements, Steal, Enemy Skill, ooh Sneak Attack would be great I could be a sniper, Speed Plus, Preemptive, and at least one Summons. Those were only the ones I thought I could reasonably get in a year if I worked hard.

No way was I getting to the Temple of the Ancients for Morph for example, and no way was I getting the Knights of the Round. 

I was fairly certain though that I knew two places where Choco/Mog Summoning Materia could be found however. 

Pity I wasn’t going to start out with Isaac’s Deluxe Edition Cactaur and Carbuncle Materia though. I had no idea where I could find those and they were both useful in their own way. The stagger on Cactaur was great.

Consulting Biggs’s memory I discovered that unfortunately Summoning mostly worked the way it did in the Remake. You could equip more than one if you wanted to, but you couldn’t summon back to back. However you didn’t actually have to wait for an arbitrary gauge to pop up. But you did have to wait for the stone you had used to start glowing again before you could use any summons at all again. 

Could be anywhere from a few minutes to an hour depending on how strong the summoned creature was. 

I figured using my meta knowledge of the lore that the Lifestream didn’t let people pull those constructs out of it willy nilly. 

As I brushed my teeth to get rid of the taste of all my vomit the night before I mused about what kind of abilities I would get from my bows as I mastered them. Probably a multishot and an arrow rain for sure. 

Alright, so the plan was get a bow, get the basic Materia I’m going to need, and then what? Just take odd jobs with the neighborhood watch until Barret arrives? 

That didn’t settle well with me. Biggs was a paranoid man and Isaac believed in always having a plan as well. I definitely decided I was a proactive being, wanting to be ready for any and every possible situation. 

No, I’d whip Wedge into shape! That’s what I’d do. Whip Wedge into shape, do the same for Jessie when she arrived, unfortunately I had no idea when her father’s accident specifically occurred so I couldn’t do anything to help that. Hmm...can I do anything for Tifa or Aerith?   
Other than offer my friendship and help when needed I doubted it. Though maybe I could train with Tifa some? She was going to be the only person I knew that had combat training until Barret returned. 

Hell her kung fu could stand up to low-grade SOLDIERs with only shit-tier Materia. 

Right so do jobs for the Watch, train Wedge and eventually Jessie for combat, train with Tifa to get myself better, and get me some Materia so I have a solid Ranger build. 

Not a bad plan if I do say so myself. 

Which...I guess I was going to be calling Biggs? Wedge would certainly find it pretty weird if I picked a totally new name out of nowhere.

Right. Isaac might be in here too but I am going to be Biggs now. Checking his ID I noticed Biggs Emory didn’t have a middle name for some reason.

Alright, I’m Biggs Isaac Emory, perfect. 

A knock came on my door and I turned.

“Hey man, you okay? You’re never late for rounds!” Wedge’s voice came from the other side of my door.

The new me smiled, time to meet my best friend for the first time again. And then whip him into shape.


	2. Assess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Biggs’s practicality, paranoia/caution, and wit really made him a stand out favorite of mine in the Remake. Hence the selection here. Well okay also who else of a secondary/background character could I have picked? Johnny?

Wedge was the sweetest dude in Midgar, I concluded.

He’d stopped to pet three cats on our way to the Weapon Shop and honestly with half of me being an animal person previously I didn’t have the heart to stop him.

I’d even pet the most tame seeming one. The Biggs part of me was a little paranoid about disease in the mangier looking ones. 

“So why are you getting a bow, dude?” Wedge questioned me as we neared the shop.

“Well I figured improved accuracy at distance, better stealth options, and most bows have the option for two connected Materia slots so if I can get my hand on Elemental Support Materia I can shoot fire and ice and lightning arrows to hit the weakness of the monsters on patrol!” I apparently was a bit of a lecturer, learn something new about yourself every day, huh? Especially when you were born yesterday. 

“Oh huh, I guess that makes sense. But where are we getting the Materia? I mean all we do is watch jobs and odd jobs, that stuff’s expensive, man!” 

I nodded in recognition, “For sure, but I’ve sniffed out some leads on some possible hotspots where some unclaimed stuff might be found, but they’re all near pretty dangerous fiends so that’s why the bow and the increased training and patrolling. It’s going to be hard.”

I flicked my eyes around looking for people listening in and then leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “I might even have a lead on a Summon Materia.”

Wedge’s eyes went wide and I had to slap a hand over his mouth before he screamed out what I had just said back at me.

“It’s not a lead if everybody knows.”

He nodded and I removed my hand. 

“So we’re getting this bow and testing it out on patrol right?” Wedge grinned at my question and nodded enthusiastically. 

The test drive of the collapsible compound bow went pretty well. We shot some targets before we actually went on patrol to make sure I wasn’t going to be a liability.

After about half an hour I’d gotten a better feel for the limbs on this body and was able to merge Isaac’s skills in passably. 

Was I going to be Robin Hood or Legolas this week? No, not at all. But Robin Hood wasn’t too far away with a little Materia and some dedication and practice.   
With a full quiver we headed out to patrol the parts of the scrapyard near the slum gates and took out a few wererats, nothing too challenging. 

We both had Ice Materia on us, as pretty much anyone who makes a bit of a living fighting fiends would, but I focused as much as I could on the arrows. 

I was pretty confident that I was melding Isaac’s bow skills with Biggs’s actual real combat experience by the end of it.

“Wow, Biggs! I knew you were a good shot with your pistol but you must be some kind of master marksman!” Wedge enthused, I smiled taking the compliment but knowing my friend was just very eager and supportive.

I could do much better in a few months with some weapon mods, some Materia, and mastering a few Abilities and a Limit Break. 

I’d checked Biggs’s memories, there were definitely records and stories of people having mind blowing secret techniques that seemed to go above human norms even though the users were human themselves.

With my meta-knowledge from Isaac I was willing to bet that Materia over an extended length of usage imparted skills and powers from the Lifestream based around the weapons they were slotted into.

It would explain the mechanical features of weapon affinity, weapon levels, and SP and such from the Remake in a way that makes sense in universe at least. 

As we swung by the guy who gave out neighborhood watch and side jobs I patted Wedge on the shoulder, “Hey man go grab us a table at Seventh Heaven, I’ll be right there.”

He nodded happily and bounded off to probably pet a few cats along the way. 

I on the other hand walked over to Chadley, who had only just started showing up in the different Slum neighborhoods a few weeks prior. He’d probably not even made a full round yet, Biggs before the merge had only heard about the kid from a guy over in Sector 5 once before he showed up here last week.

“Chadley,” I greeted and he looked up at me.

“Ah, Biggs was it? A member of the watch here? Are you going to take me up on my research endeavor? Not many have, but I hope to soon have the trust that people will share their gained knowledge with me!” 

I nodded at him, “Sure thing, kid,” even knowing the truth of Chadley I had to keep up appearances.

“I hear you use some fancy Materia to study monsters? And you need us in the field to help you spread the study wider?” 

The strange intern smiled at my question, “Indeed! If you are offering to be one of the beta testers I would greatly appreciate it! This Assess Materia is a bit of a prototype, we hope to eventually have them commit deeper analysis, but it will give you a basic description of the monster and elemental weaknesses and resistances.”

Oh, so this was Assess zero point eight or something? I wasn’t going to be getting a full on Libra equivalent this time. Interesting.

But the Isaac in me was all in for furthering research, especially knowing Chadley was not a fan of Shinra or Hojo. 

“Hey, that’s more than I might know off the top of my head if I come across something really weird!” I reassured him, “And to further research that might actually help the Slums instead of get us exploited more under the corporate heel is always something I am game for!”

Oops too much socialism, gotta reign it back in. This world literally has corporations that outright own countries, I don’t think I can push the exact reverse here any time soon. Ecoterrorism is one thing, uplifting of the proletariat would have to wait. Even just some child labor laws and a union or two would be nice though...no priorities Biggs, priorities. 

Stop the planet from either being sucked dry or blowing up, then help improve working conditions.

I looked around at the Slum, and living conditions. 

And as I looked around I caught sight of Chadley once more, having walked off with his notebook after giving me the beta Assess, and I realized something.

I was in so much danger because Chadley’s presence means that I’m in the Remake timeline not the main one. I can’t change too much too early or I’ll get ganked by the Gaia version of a Time Wraith. 

I hadn’t seen one yet though, which means that I can change my skillset, my personality, and get stronger as long as I don’t blow canon out of the water by myself.

Once I was teamed up with Cloud though I should be able to hitch a ride on the canon train until it’s time to deal with the Whisperers and then we can blow canon out of the water together. 

My lips twitched upwards as I walked towards Seventh Heaven and thought of a good pun, “Oh, the landslide will bring it...down.” 

I quietly sang Landslide to myself as I approached the bar. Isaac’s mom had been a big Stevie Nicks fan. And Dixie Chicks. And his dad liked Smashing Pumpkins. Man did he grow up with a lot of Landslide covers. And then his wife was a musician that played a great cover of it, too. 

They call trends like that weird coincidences but if the new me started seeing the same song pop up over and over in this world surrounding important people or events I sure as Hell was going to start looking for a conspiracy.

That may have been Old Biggs talking a bit but I didn’t care, I knew there were actual supernatural forces enforcing Fate, capital F, here so I had to be cautious. 

But as I came in through the front door my best friend held a beer up, “Hey! What took you so long man?” 

And I grinned, and decided that worrying about Fate could wait a few hours while I cracked open a cold one with the boys. 

And Tifa, who I waved to. Needed to ask her about training together once I felt up to speed.


	3. Chakra

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I am using Materia names or terms for every chapter title. Will usually be an involved Materia if possible.   
> Also gotta say something like this feels very simple, fluid, and much easier to write. This may end up being my go to for between Mirai Marvel chapters. That’s what’ll likely happen once I run through my outlined beginning few chapters here.  
> Also I do not take story requests. Though that’s more of a problem on my DBZ stories.

“Hey, Tifa!” I said across the bar as Wedge and I cracked open another round of beers a week or so after my birth. My arrival? Fuck it I’m three beers in I don’t care what I call it.

“Hmm?” She hummed as she turned around to face me, “Something up Biggs?”

“Yeah I heard you know kung fu!” I punched the air a few times, barely not spilling the beer in my left hand. 

She let out something between a laugh and a giggle, her version of a chuckle maybe, “Yeah, and what about it?”

“Well,” I said and punched Wedge in the shoulder, “We two fools over here are not so great in melee! Wedge just kind of yells and tries to smack things with the butt of his gun and while I have knives and kinda know how to use them I’m much better at a distance too. I was wondering if you’d wanna occasionally train or spar with me so I can keep our asses out of the fire?” 

Wedge weakly protested, “I don’t scream...too much!” 

“I said yells buddy, you just outed yourself as a screamer to Tifa, ya know?” I gently ribbed him. 

“Aww man!” He grumbled. 

Tifa laughed again, “Well alright, I don’t get a lot of reasons to get practice in so I might as well. You boys are usually off of patrol rotation tomorrow right?”

I nodded, “Sure are! I usually rest or pick up the odder jobs. Fixed your landlady’s refrigerator last week!” 

“Perfect!” She said, “How about a few hours before I open? Two-ish?” 

“Sounds great!”

She kicked me ass. Kicked my ass all over the little dirt field through a pipe behind the bar. 

But over a few training sessions I got better with the knife fighting, and much better with occasionally using my bow as a quarterstaff kinda like Hawkeye from the Avengers. 

Hmm...I thought to myself as I was modifying my bow a few days of practice later. MCU Hawkeye and Green Arrow (Arrowverse version) would both be pretty solid targets for what to build myself up to. 

Do I need to make EMP arrows or can I just slot Lightning and Elemental together? Grenade arrows? Ooh wait Orb of Gravity on an arrow? Well if they could put bombs inside of stuffed animals and have a robotic house throw them around I’m fairly certain effect arrows were possible. Definitely a grappling hook attachment.

But I’ll put those on a solid third priority on the short-term goals list. 

I was lucky that Old Biggs was relatively organized and good at making and keeping to lists, because if college was any indication Isaac was not. He couldn’t even make a shopping list without forgetting something or losing it. 

I’d covered four pages of a notebook with ideas and plans for getting stronger. Or raising better funds for Avalanche when Barret got here. 

I was fairly confident if I could get myself to Hawkeye levels I could start fighting in the Colosseum in Wall Market fairly safely. The Corneo Cup would be a different story though, I’d want to have a Summoning Materia and be a lot more confident in my fighting abilities. And even then I’d probably still have someone bet against me and for Cloud if I managed to fight in the one he participated in.

Against an S-Cell SOLDIER with the memories of a First Class SOLDIER I have no illusions about my chances. 

Plus I don’t want Jenova cells anywhere near me. Plus Cloud and Aerith will be more than enough to beat Sephiroth. My job is just to keep a few extra people alive and maybe make it a little easier. 

I put my pen down and rubbed my eyes. If I fretted myself to death I wouldn’t be a help to anyone. 

I’d been in existence for...I checked the calendar, fifteen days. I’d acquired the bow, practiced with it, started sparring with Tifa, and worked with getting Wedge into better shape.

It was time to start collecting Materia.

I’d requested to be off rotation the next two days for ‘personal improvement’ and I was going to head off and try to pick up the hidden Materia I knew about from the games, well some of them hopefully. Worst case scenario they weren’t there yet but I would fight some fiends and maybe find different ones.

Luckily I wasn’t a terrorist yet so I could take the train without worrying about any ID issues. Plus traveling between slums was allowed for my ID level regardless. 

“Now arriving, Sector Four Under Plate Station.” 

I immediately headed out of town, sneaking through their own scrapyard. Broken cars, abandoned half-trashed construction equipment, it all littered the ground in mountains as I made my way towards the support pillar. 

It was both to my benefit and to my disgust that I noted how little attention Shinra paid to the lower levels of the support pillar. I probably wouldn’t have to deal with any kind of surveillance unless I went all the way up to the Sun Lamps. 

Which I absolutely was not doing. I only needed to get up to some of the ventilation fans a bit underneath there. If memory served Cloud was definitely fighting mostly monsters on these lower levels a bit over a year from now so surely not much was going to be different. 

It quickly turned into a Grashtrike infested nightmare making my way up. The things were even uglier in person, they very rarely came over towards Sector 7 so I hadn’t seen any since Biggs’s memories of a minor outbreak when he first arrived in Midgar at the beginning of the year. It was almost as if a lobster, a preying mantis, and a scorpion had all been combined in some sickening science experiment. I glanced at the copious amounts of webbing strewn about laying over and between abandoned equipment and cargo crates. Oh right, I’d forgotten the weird spider stuff too.

I did however feel a bit like Batman as I snuck around just out of sight of the fiends and carefully used a grappling gun to yank my way up to a busted piece of scaffolding above this nest in my way.

I had a few ways I could approach this encounter, and I was hosting an internal debate on whether to open up with magic or arrows.

I leaned a bit over the edge of the scaffolding and glanced around at how high the webbing went. Only about ten feet up the support beams in the area I noticed, the webbing seemed mostly to be a way to trap prey on the ground and secure egg sacks. Which made sense to me, at that size without a hyper-oxygenated atmosphere chitinous exoskeletons would be extremely strenuous. They likely could not climb or jump in the manner of smaller arachnids. I knew they could pounce of course, saw that in the game, but I was fairly certain I’d yet to see one of them come down from climbing on a roof or make a leap of more than five or six feet aerial. 

I kind of wished this large of a next, four of the Grashes, had been an obstacle on the way to Choco/Mog and not on the way to Elemental. Because if I’d had Elemental and Ice slotted into my bow I could have plowed through this.

Instead I was going to need finesse. I glanced down at my belt, well as Anakin Skywalker might call it in my situation ‘aggressive subtlety’ perhaps. 

I put four arrows out near me for easy access, oddly enough there was a metal bucket rusted to Hell still sitting up here from construction, and summoned up the...mana? Lifeforce? Magic points? In Gaia there was really no real explanation for MP and it just sort of seemed to the admittedly uneducated in the arcane people Old Biggs and myself had been exposed to that some people could cast more spells with Materia than others.

Oops digressing mid-spell is a bad idea, almost lost it. 

Alright, go time.

A stream of blue energy sort of zig-zagged out of my hand until it got close to the nearest Grash on the ground about twenty feet out from my support beam, once it neared it rapidly expanded into an icy orb that five jagged spikes shot out of sending the fiend flying back, hopefully dead.

I did not wait to check, I already had an arrow nocked and was pulling my string back aiming at the next creature. 

The arrow shot forth and struck true just between the joint of the scythe-like arm and the torso of the beast.

Only now I had moving targets. I was able to get my other three prepped arrows all fired off in quick succession, however only two hit and only one of those killed its target. 

I now had an angry and wounded Grash flinging webbing a lot higher than I had anticipated up at me. I had ducked behind the railing of the scaffolding and a plank I had propped up before I started firing and I was lucky I had, because the first burst of webbing had stretched from that plank and up to the top of the railing.

“Right, they’ve got a bit of range on them. No problem, I have a friend for this sucker.”

And with that I pulled an odd black snowglobe looking thing out of a pouch on my belt and lobbed it over my shoulder into the general area of where the creature was firing at me from.

When I heard a rushing wind sound mixed with the rattling of some equipment and boxes I knew it was time.

I rolled to the left of my previous position and popped up from my cover, bow drawn. As I oriented my aim I saw the creature scrabbling to escape from an odd ripple in the air that was slowly pulling anything less than a hundred or so pounds from around towards it. 

I love orbs of gravity, I thought to myself as I loosed the final blow. A nice swift arrow to its disgusting insectoid head. 

“Duh duh duh duh duh dun dun da dun!” I hummed to myself as I glanced around for the best grapple point to swing down. I was probably off key but Barret was definitely worse so I didn’t care.


	4. Elemental

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can lockdown just never end? Fuck capitalism for real, all about that self-actualization pyramid and having enough free time to reach the top.  
> I made the executive decision to break this and the next chapter into two so that I could get this out today instead of closer to the end of this week at some point. Should be dropping my next Mirai Marvel chapter this week as well. Which will be the last “update” for that while I go back and fix some typos and style in the older chapters for a bit. I’ll edit at least 2 chapters of that for every single chapter of this I post in the interim.  
> Lmao I put it right there that I do not take story request and what’s my first ‘Guest’ review? A request.

There it was, just on the other side of the now trashed Grashtrike nest on a hanging walkway jutting out and going nowhere.

A sphere of blue glowing lightly in the afternoon sun and sun lamp light. It was the part of the day where the angle of the sun actually got to this side of the undercity. 

I picked it up and scrutinized it closely. It was definitely the right type of Materia, let’s see if it was what I actually thought it was.

I slotted it into my bow next to my Ice Materia and nocked and drew back and arrow.

Steam came up off of the arrowhead as ice crystals formed around the tip. Yes this was definitely Elemental! 

“Hell yeah!” I yelled out as I returned the arrow to my quiver without firing. This was perfect and...I looked around for weird ghosts or objects moving or anything. 

Not a large enough change to have the weird time wraith things on my ass. If I did start encountering some when Cloud and his group did arrive I’d just give them the Materia and as long as I generally followed Barret’s orders I should be safe until the plate drop, and at that point I can latch on to Cloud’s party for protection. 

I did some light stretching as I got ready to move further upwards, I still have one special Materia to swipe. 

By the time I finished I was going to have four Materia, which was my maximum with my gear anyways. Right now I have Ice and Elemental slotted on my bow, Healing in my bangle, and I would have Choco/Mog around my neck for my Summoning Materia.

Was Choco/Mog the strongest Summons? No, not by a long shot. But unless Chadley got to his weird synthetic summoning Materia soon it was all I had available to me. And it would give me a source of distraction and wind damage both of which I certainly wouldn’t mind as a long range fighter.

Plus since I was going for a Ranger build the Chocobo part was oddly fitting. 

Hmm, maybe I could get my hands on a Shinra guard dog or raise a battle Chocobo like in the Final Fantasy XIV mmorpg? It was a thought at least, maybe I could win one gambling with Chocobo Sam? I’m pretty good at poker and blackjack. Wouldn’t trust his coin flipping for shit though. 

Yeah I should take the long way back to Sector Seven actually, I could head through Sector Five and donate some of the Gil I’ve been finding to the orphans, maybe pick up some odd jobs, meet Aerith? Would meeting Aerith be weird? No I’m still discovering who the new Biggs is I probably shouldn’t interact with important characters. 

But maybe I could find the Angel of the Slums and offer to help out? That might be worth it. 

Then I can make my way over to Wall Market and scout out the Colosseum to see how strong I’ll need to get to participate. 

That does put me either hopping on a train or Chocobo Carriage in Sector Five or risking the collapsed area of Sector Six Under Plate. I did some quick math, I had the Gil for that and an orphanage donation, though likely just a small donation unless I found a big score up here. 

As I continued my way upwards towards the ventilation fans I noticed two major things.

First, that the Shinra automated defenses really were powered down to I suppose save money? Honestly it was tempting to start taking a wrench to the sentry guns and such for scrap. But I wasn’t sure if direct tampering wouldn’t trigger some kind of failsafe and wake them all up.

Second, I noticed that a lot of fiends were a hundredfold easier to kill at a range than with a melee weapon.

The sleep-spewing Blugu fish creatures, even though they weren’t weak to the Ice, still were mid-range with their abilities so I could put three arrows into them before they could ever get to where they could put me to sleep. And if I found a perch they had even more of a struggle floating vertically up to try and get me. And the crazy flying seahorse Terpsicolts were weak to my Elemental infused arrows and went down easily, as their main source of frustration was their ability to fly up and whirl around, which did not take them out of my range. 

I might actually be a force to be reckoned with when it comes to fiend-slaying once I get my hands on Dex-up, Luck-up, or Sneak Attack Materia. Like I won’t be fighting like Cloud any time soon but it could be pretty good. 

“Oh shit!” I yelped as I dropped to my knees and slid underneath a whirling Terpsicolt, as I came to a stop I twisted my torso around like a Mongol archer in the saddle and loosed an arrow right into the strange fiend as it exited its spin cycle. 

Right, can’t let myself get distracted mid-battle. Note to self, ADHD came over in the transfer. I thought back to Old Biggs’s younger antics. Possibly exacerbated if both components had it.

I leaned forward into a roll to dodge the fumes of a Blugu, “I need to get Lightning Materia...” I whined to myself as I shot my fourth arrow of the encounter into the thing. 

That finally took it down, I stood up and brushed myself off. The good thing about being an archer was I wasn’t constantly covered in blood and gore at least. 

I collapsed my bow down to its portable state and clipped it onto my back harness with my quiver. Tilting my head to the side I cracked my neck then started pulling my arms around to stretch the muscles a bit. I’d hit the ground hard on that roll with my back and shoulders. 

Yeah I definitely wasn’t a SOLDIER. Pity that I had no idea how Cid did his Limit Breaks though. Being a Dragoon would have been fun. But they didn’t need two of those in the party anyways. I’d been smart in picking Ranger. 

Was it the coolest class option? I thought to myself as I stretched my legs for the next leg of the trip, no not really. I mean Legolas and Green Arrow and Hawkeye were pretty great and all, but in so far as what Final Fantasy made available to me I could have done Dark Knight, Dragoon, or Paladin and it would have been cooler. And the two knight-style classes there weren’t even really covered by this team. 

I just knew that in Gaia you’d have to be a SOLDIER to pull off Dark Knight or Paladin. Which wasn’t happening. If I’d been in a Crystal-based universe? That could have been cool. 

“Okay,” I spoke lowly to just myself, “Just that last Grash nest left on my way to the ventilation fan.”

“Hmm...” I had another thought, “I really hope this is early enough that that Queen hasn’t hatched yet...”

It was another fifteen minutes of ladder climbing and grapple gun firing before I got to the maintenance console that I needed.

“Alright kill the Grash in one minute or I have to come back here to reset this a second time.” 

I thought I was getting close to getting Ice to level two and able to cast Blizzara, so hopefully this last fight would put me over the top. 

“Three...two...” I counted down and prepared myself, “One!” I hit the button and charged in letting a Blizzard fly at the first moving creature I saw and quickly pulling an arrow back to fire away at the next one.

The first two Grashes went down like chumps and I immediately went into a sideways roll to avoid poison from the only one I hadn’t surprised. Two arrows shot him up.

“Yes! Under a minute!” I crowed as I ran over to the other maintenance door and went through to the interior of the fan.

And there it was. Glowing nice and red under the fading afternoon glow of the sun lamp.

I bent down to pick up my new summoning Materia.

And heard a strange hissing roar from the room behind me.

“Shit, the Queen was just out.”


	5. Chocobo and Moogle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is really taking off, I appreciate that. Also I did say I don’t do requests but I’d like to add that Dirge of Cerberus was the worst of the FFVII games. Yes I preferred Crisis Core. At least that had some interesting backstory and character development.

I spun in place, quickly slotting the summoning Materia into my pendant I’d gotten for that purpose.

“Shit, shit, shit.” I quickly took stock of the situation, mind racing.

The Queen was back.

Pros: Just got my summoning Materia, she was alone now, and the door wasn’t reopened yet so I had some time to prepare.

Cons: These things are fucking brutal pardon my...Nibelheimian? Kalmian? Is there a French equivalent on this world? Anyways the Queens are fucking brutal. It’s just me, that’s another con. I’m a long range fighter, another con. It was an enclosed space, major con combined with the other points.

So I needed a plan. 

I could definitely run, I don’t think she could follow me fast enough if I grappled down the support pillar.

But I didn’t want to run, that felt wrong to me.

Okay, so I needed to reopen the maintenance door and then rush in, at that point I would have a minute to...a minute to…

I grinned, it was perfect. 

I hit the button and charged up a Blizzard spell, as soon as the door opened I blasted the Queen in the face as she whirled around to face the noise and immediately juked to the right around an exposed girder. 

She gaze out a hissing scream of pain and rage and a huge glob of venomous acid landed right where I had entered the room.

Fifty-five.

I dove through the gap between girders and came up out of my roll with an icy arrow ready to fire right into her exposed underbelly. 

Another scream of rage.

Fifty-two.

I had to immediately roll backwards however to dodge the two scythe-like front arms coming down in vicious overhead strikes. My leg cleared the area by only half a second. I bounced up onto my feet and leapt back through the girders like the strafing asshole I was. 

Forty-nine.

Damage done, space achieved as she tried to reach through or tear the girders apart before trying to go around, I grasped my new Materia in my hand.

“Chocobo and Moogle!” I screamed as mana from the Lifestream swirled in the Materia. 

“Wark! Kupo!” It burst outwards and coalesced into two forms over in the clearer portion of the room. 

A strange almost white rabbit like creature with a puff-ball topped antennae on its head riding a giant ostrich-sized chicken-like creature. 

Immediately the Moogle, Mog, began harassing the Queen with low-grade spells while the Chocobo took care of mobility and occasionally slashing the beast with its taloned feet. 

Forty.

I immediately began slowly falling back to the door, firing arrows around my Summons at the Queen as I went. 

We were slowly whittling her down and now I was safe enough that once the timer went off I could just step through the door as it closed. 

Thirty-five. 

The Queen knocked the Chocobo flying backwards and she came barreling towards me. 

“Moogle Blast!” I yelled out as I dove behind a crate, just in time for her blades to impale the box instead of my body.

She shrieked as a purple colored Fira-level explosion rocked her back, turning around she hissed at my Summons.

Thirty.

“And run!” I said to myself under my breath as I took off for the other side of the room, baseball sliding behind another crate. 

“Shit shit shit...” I popped up from cover and let another arrow fly. I was now on the wrong side of the room from the door I needed to get through. 

Twenty-five.

I used just a bit more of my mana, I didn’t have much to start with, to fling another Blizzard spell into the distracted side of the creature’s face. 

She shrieked and turned to glare at me before getting body checked by my charging Chocobo. 

I really wanted to get a real life battle Chocobo like in the FFXIV MMO. I could get it armor. Maybe if I lived past Midgar in the story I’d do exactly that.

Oh shit, focus, I thought to myself as I made another dive between the girders as the Queen muscled her way over to my side of the room.

Nineteen.

She had wisened up, she had feinted following me and then jumped to her left to block my exit from the miniature alcove created by the girders.

“Oh...hi there, Chocobo Kick!” I commanded my Summons and with an insane burst of speed the Chocobo rocketed in feet first and sent the Queen, confused by the new level of speed, sideways a half dozen meters into the far wall. 

“Thanks!” I called out as I made my way over to the exit.

Ten.

Nine.

The Queen shrieked again and stood back up rushing towards me in rage. 

The timer on my Summons was apparently out too, as they began to glow and suddenly a wave of dozens of Chocobos blitzed the Queen into another wall through a stack of crates.

Five.

The Summons faded. I was almost there.

Three.

So was the Queen, I kicked my feet out and slid through her grasping blades and skidded through the open door.

One.

Just as the Queen stuck her head through the door it slammed shut, decapitating her and covering me in nasty fiend gunk.

“Gross,” I griped as I stood up and tried to clean myself off a little bit. 

Not all that bad however, I thought to myself, I was alive, hadn’t really taken any hits other than some bruises from my acrobatics, and the thing was dead!

I rubbed my shoulder where I’d hit a wall as I rolled back from one of the Queen’s strikes. I was going to need a good night sleep and maybe to knock back a potion right before bed.

I certainly didn’t feel up to making it all the way back to the Sector Seven Slums today, Sector Five Slums were the closest to me over here under the Sector 4 Plate so I’d head down the pillar and over that way.


End file.
